Summertime is a great time for kids and parents to relax, travel, and try new thing, but that time away from school sometimes means children will forget what they learned during the previous school year.
Miguel Solis is president of Commit Partnership, which works with over 200 organizations to drive economic mobility for every North Texas student through equal access to quality education. He sat down with NTX Now's Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning to give advice for how parents can combat summer learning loss before school starts back up.
What is summer learning loss?
Solis explains that kids are focused on things besides school during the summer, so they may not retain things they learned the year prior, and some children are affected more than others.
"What research has also shown is certain kids are losing learning a bit more, while other kids are actually not losing learning at all," he said. "It's become a much more nuanced topic than just what the title of the phenomena would suggest."
Solis says the level of learning loss depends on things like where a family lives, their socioeconomic status and whether they have access to certain resources.
"If you have access to the resources that are going to get you into a summer camp, it's gonna give you a multitude of experiences that will help build off of what you have been learning over the academic year," he said. "The chances of you learning or losing any learning is zero, essentially."
What can parents do to help?
Solis says even though school is almost back in session, it isn't too late to start learning over the summer. He said there are three major things parents can do that can make a positive difference:
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Rebuild routines
"That means get your kid to bed on time so that they are beginning to be prepared to be able to wake up early to get to school," he said.
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Remember that learning happens everywhere
"For example, maybe you're gonna cook one night," Solis said. "Could you bring your kid right next to you as you're cooking and talk about the recipe and talk about the vegetables you're going to use, or why you want to even cook that dish?"
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Talk through goals for the next school year.
"Confidence matters as much as context," he said. "Talk to your kid about getting ready to go back to school. Can you talk to them about goals that they may want to set for that year?"
Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning are the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Miranda at msuarez@kera.org or Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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